Mark Peckham
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Detective Harry Stoner has seen better days. It's the middle of January and business is slower than a crawl. Curled up in his office with a paperback mystery, a little classical music on the radio, and a bottle of Scotch, Harry's ready to cut his losses and hibernate until spring. The only problem is that Harry's been living off Visa credit and Christmas cash, and the money faucet is beginning to run dry.
Enter Leon Tubin, an odd little man with...
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Clients never tell the whole story. Harry Stoner had taken a snowy drive to Cincinnati psychiatrist Phil Pearson's mansion to hear the tale of daughter Kirsten-emotionally disturbed and missing. But the doctor left out the parts about his first wife's suicide and his second wife's bedroom eyes that were already chasing the winter cold from Stoner's blood. That's why Stoner suspected the search for Kirsten could take a kinky turn. He'd seen teens driven...
3) The Lime Pit
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Stoner is a private eye in the classic tradition: a loner with a history of failed relationships with women and all-too-successful relationships with bottles of scotch. He's unable to look away from the world's corruption-and unable to avoid trying to do something about it. His latest hopeless cause is Cindy Ann, a teenage hooker. She's not very pretty or bright or engaging ... she doesn't have much to offer at all. So when she disappears, it's all...
4) Flashfire
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Parker thrillers volume 19
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Between Parker's 1961 debut and his return in the late 1990s, the whole world of crime changed. Now fake IDs and credit cards had to be purchased from specialists; increasingly sophisticated policing made escape and evasion tougher; and, worst of all, money had gone digital-the days of cash-stuffed payroll trucks were long gone.
But cash isn't everything: Flashfire and Firebreak find Parker going after, respectively, a fortune in jewels and...
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Queen visits an operating theater to witness a surgery, but finds a murder instead The son of a police detective, Ellery Queen grew up in a bloody atmosphere. Since he started lending his deductive powers to the New York City homicide squad, he has seen more than his fair share of mangled corpses. Though he is accustomed to gore, the thought of seeing a living person sliced open makes him ill. So when a doctor invites him to sit in on an operation,...
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On a seaside vacation, Ellery Queen is ensnared in a trio of strange crimes Spanish Cape is a dramatic promontory, its rocky cliffs topped with a picturesque hacienda. This isolated spot belongs to millionaire Walter Godfrey and it should be a peaceful family getawaybut one summer evening, Rosa Godfrey argues with her uncle David as he tries to convince her not to run away with one of their guests, the roguish John Marco. Suddenly, a one-eyed gunman...
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Ellery Queen and his father discover a baffling murder on a private island Ellery Queen and his father are meandering through breakfast when their apartment is invaded. Without making a sound, 2 men appear in the Queens' living room, guns drawn, and proceed to search the place. When they're done, a 3rd man follows: a paunchy little professor-type who happens to be the brother of a king. King Bendigo doesn't rule a country, but his control of the international...
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A series of cryptic notes announce a death in a bizarre wealthy family. York Square is a tidy private garden surrounded by 4 matching castles, each inhabited by a different branch of the York family. There's Robert, commanding and icy; Myra, gentle and ill; Emily, who would prefer to live in a cottage; and Percival, who has many personal secrets. Watching them all is the gardener, Walt, who sees more than any of them realize. When an anonymous scribe...
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Inspector Omar Collins tracks a mad killer through California's Sierra Nevada mountains in this classic novel from the legendary mystery author.
A party of backpackers hikes along the silver strand of the river, in awe of the overwhelming beauty of King's Canyon. They are amateur hikers, coworkers at a chemical lab who came from Fresno to heed the call of the wild. They have endured blisters, bug bites, and sunburn, but no discomfort can prepare...
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An American spy dives into the Tokyo underworld to catch a defector Fred Wilkinson waits in a Tokyo alley, wishing he were James Bond. Paunchy, in his 50s, and oh-so-tired, Wilkinson has nothing in common with that world-famous man of mystery-except that they are both spies. He's already near the end of his career when he goes to Japan to meet with the Soviet defector Krylov, and some of his colleagues back in Washington think he's getting soft. They're...
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While stranded in the desert, Ellery Queen stumbles across a religious cult It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda housetwelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble...
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Ellery Queen leaps into action when a jet-setter is murdered in Wrightsville From New Year's in Málaga to Christmas in Hawaii, John Levering Benedict III-or Johnny-B, as everyone calls him-is the crown prince of the jet set. He has 3 ex-wives, a limitless fortune, and more frequent flier miles than he can count. When Johnny-B tires of life in the sky, he sneaks off to a quiet corner of New England called Wrightsville, where he has purchased a cozy...
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With the help of actor Drury Lane, Inspector Thumm chases a stolen manuscript and a man with a rainbow beard Inspector Thumm has never seen such a marvelous beard. It is massive and pointed, a rainbow composed of all the colors of Joseph's biblical coat. He's so distracted by the beard that he hardly notices the man it belongs to: a prospective client with mysterious business. This bearded fellow hands over an envelope containing a million-dollar...
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Ellery Queen investigates a mobster whose bizarre death is marked by the number 9 Nino Importuna has a soft face, but when he smiles, it's terrifying. His Central Park penthouse is lavish, but it was bought with the blood of his enemies. His criminal empire controls mining, electronics, and food-legitimate corporations that he runs with a murderer's touch. When he catches one of his capos stealing from him, Importuna could either kill the man or...
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A murdered fashion designer draws Ellery Queen into a tangled family plot Ever since New York was Nieuw Amsterdam, the McKells have been building their fortune. Combining Scottish thrift with American know-how, they built an empire that, by the 1930s, stretched across the globe. No one in the family found more success than Ashton McKell, an entrepreneur who counts his wealth in the hundreds of millions, who smokes twenty cigars a day, and whose only...
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A college student's disappearance threatens to upend the race for governor Tisquanto is a quiet college town, and its chief of police wants to keep it that way. For years, the only trouble the students gave the locals was the occasional fraternity party that got out of hand. But now there are kids on campus calling for revolution. When the governor's right-hand man, Mike McCall, comes to Tisquanto, the chief of police promises he'll keep the students...
17) The Tragedy of X
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Retired Shakespearean actor Drury Lane solves a mystery from afar Born during intermission in a seedy New Orleans playhouse, Drury Lane has spent the better part of his life in the theater. A majestic old-fashioned ham, he made his name in London, where his record-breaking run as Hamlet defined the role for a generation. When hearing loss forces him to retire, he turns his attention to human drama-specifically crime. Using his powers of disguise,...
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The search for a pornographic film director draws Mike McCall into a chase for a killer The film is called The Wild Nymph, and it may be the finest pornographic movie ever made. A relic of the 1950s, when erotic cinema was more artistic than smutty, it was filmed on a shoestring budget by the enigmatic genius Sol Dahlman. But 20 years later, the film has been forgotten and Dahlman has become a recluse. Finding him will be a deadly proposition. ...
19) The Four Johns
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A teaching assistant knows that a man named John is out to kill him-but which John is it? Mervyn Gray sits at the college coffee shop scowling at his notes. The waitress assumes he's just another overworked Berkeley undergrad, but she is dead wrong. Gray is a teacher's aide fighting for his life. Two days ago, he was nearly poisoned. Yesterday, a bullet missed him by inches. Unless he can guess who is trying to take him out, and why, Gray will be...
20) The Killer Touch
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An American cop stumbles across a drug ring on a tropical island No matter how hard she tries, Tracy can't seem to kill herself. Her hands shake too much to cut her wrists. Wading into the ocean, her body refuses to be drowned. Even the heroin she has been shooting for years has failed to kill her. Her joints aching, she takes another hit, promising herself that she'll attempt suicide again tomorrow. But she won't get the chance. Tracy's just sinking...